The following writers have been confirmed as participants for the 2007 Southwest Writers Institute.

Aaron A. Abeyta is the author of three books, Colcha, As Orion Falls, and Rise, Do Not Be Afraid (novel). Aaron received his MFA from Colorado State University and currently teaches at Adams State College. Abeyta is the recipient of the 2001 Colorado Book Award and the 2002 American Book Award. Other awards include a fellowship from the Colorado Council on the Arts and a Grand Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He has work published in An Introduction to Poetry, 10th ed.; Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, & Drama, 8th ed.; High Country News; The Dry Creek Review; S.O.M.O.S; Sage Plains Review; Chokecherries; Colorado Central Magazine; and various other journals. He lives in Antonito, Colorado, where he can be close to his roots and family.

Esther G. Belin is a writer and two-dimensional artist who was raised in Lynwood, California. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2000, she won the American Book Award for her first book of poetry, From the Belly of My Beauty published by the University of Arizona Press in fall 1999. Her first published work appeared in Moving the Image: Independent Asian Pacific American Media Arts. Other published works appear in these anthologies: Neon Pow Wow, Song of the Turtle, Speaking for the Generations, “BOMB”, Native American Voices, American Indian Urban Experience, Pride of Place, The Iowa Review and Sister Nations. She is currently an MFA student in creative writing at Antioch University Los Angeles. She has lived in Durango for the last nine years with her family.

Twice director of the Telluride Council for the Arts & Humanities (1980-81 and 1995-96), Art Goodtimes has also served as a Vista volunteer, pre-school director, Latin teacher, as well as a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist. Art served as director of the Telluride Writers Guild for 17 years (1981-1998) and continues as a board member. He has served as the poet-in-residence at Western State College's Headwaters Conference (Gunnison) for 18 years. He is the creator of the Talking Gourds concept (based on the work of Dolores LaChapelle), and has held various Talking Gourds gatherings in the region since 1989, currently co-directing the Talking Gourds Festival held each April in Telluride. Currently he is part of a performance poetry trio, EAR, with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and Ellen Metrick. He has received a number of awards for his artistic, environmental and political work, including a creative writing fellowship from the Colorado Arts Council (1989), a Telluride Institute Visionary Award (1995), an Outstanding Environmental Achievement Award from the EPA (1998), and Club 20's Theos-Johnson Bridge Builder Award (2005). He has a weekly opinion column "Up Bear Creek" in the Telluride Watch (1983-present), a weekly column in the Norwood Post, as well as a monthly column in the Four Corners Free Press (Cortez). His latest book is As If the World Really Mattered (La Alameda Press, Albuquerque, 2006).

Chris Goold has been a freelance writer for over 25 years, and an FLC instructor since 1989. Her articles and essays have appeared in a wide variety of local, regional and national magazines and newspapers, and her two historical romantic suspense novels are both set in 1890’s Colorado. Her students in FLC’s Magazine Feature Writing class have also published in a range of local and national publications, including Inside/Outside, Rock and Ice, Back Home, College Bound and other publications. She is currently working on a contemporary mystery novel series.

Will Hobbs is the author of sixteen novels for upper elementary, middle school and young adult readers, as well as two picture book stories. Seven of his novels, Bearstone, Downriver, The Big Wander, Beardance, Far North, The Maze, and Jason’s Gold, have been chosen by the American Library Association as Best Books for Young Adults. ALA also selected Far North and Downriver for its list of the 100 Best Young Adult Books of the 20th Century . In l998, Ghost Canoe received the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery. A graduate of Stanford University and former reading and language arts teacher, Will lives with his wife, Jean, in Durango, Colorado. Please visit Will’s website.

Steven J. Meyershas been Visiting Instructor of Creative Writing at Fort Lewis College since 2000. He has published six volumes of creative non-fiction and his work has appeared in periodicals as diverse as Field & Stream and Parabola. He taught creative writing at the Clayton Summer Arts Institute, and served as an Artist-In-Residence with the Colorado Council on the Arts. In 1981 he was chosen as the Colorado Governor’s Awards For The Arts—Honored Artist. In 1992 he was awarded a Western States Arts Foundation/Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities Co-Visions grant. He was the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities Colorado Journeys featured author in both 1996 and 2004.

Kate Niles is the award-winning author of The Basket Maker. She is currently at work on a second novel and is a regular columnist for Inside/Outside Southwest. Her work has appeared in national publications including The Louisville Review, FishDrum, South Dakota Review, and others. She is the winner of the Colorado Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship Award (the state’s highest arts award) and lives outside Durango with her husband and son.

Laura Tohe is Diné and was raised by her family and relatives on the Navajo reservation. She has written and co-authored four books. The most recent, Tseyi, Deep in the Rock was listed as one of the Southwest Book of the Year 2005 by Tucson Pima Library. She was the 2006 Dan Schilling Public Scholar for the Arizona Humanities Council. She has written essays, stories, children’s plays, and a commissioned libretto for the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra. Her current book project is a book on the Navajo Code Talkers. She is Associate Professor in the English Department at Arizona State University.

Ken Wright is a free-lance writer, college instructor, author, and father, although not necessarily in that order. He is also a contributing editor and columnist for Inside Outside Southwest magazine, where his writings take readers on philosophical and often humorous forays into the unique life and land of the Four Corners region. As a self-described "paleo-dad," Ken's writings reflect on, and often rant for, the blessings and lessons the West's open spaces, wild places, and even wilder people offer our children - "places to create the people who can create the world to come." Ken's essays, book reviews, and news features have appeared in a variety of national and regional magazines and newspapers, and he is the author of two essay collections, A Wilder Life: Essays from Home and Why I'm Against it All. He recently completed his third book, a compilation of stories about raising a family in the 21st-century West.